President Obama Speaks on Student Loan Interest Rates in Iowa

April 25, 2012
| 29:32
| Public Domain

President Obama discusses the importance of a college education and why higher education should be affordable for all students willing to work hard, and calls on Congress to stop interest rates on federal Stafford loans from doubling in July.

This country has always made a commitment to put a good education within the reach of everybody who's willing to work for it. That’s part of what made us special. That’s what kept us at the forefront of business and science and technology and medicine. That’s a commitment that we need to reaffirm today.

Now, here's the challenge we've got. Since most of you were born, tuition and fees at America’s colleges have more than doubled. And that forces students like you to take out more loans and rack up more debt. The average student who borrows to pay for college now graduates with about $25,000 in student loan debt. And in this state, it’s even higher. Americans now owe more on their student loans than they owe on credit cards.

And living with that debt means you’ve got to make some pretty tough choices. It might mean putting off buying a first home or chasing that great startup idea that you’ve got. Maybe you’ll have to wait a little bit longer to start a family or save for retirement. And when a big chunk of every paycheck goes towards loan debt, that’s not just tough on you, that’s not just tough on middle-class families -- that’s not good for our economy, because that money that could be going into businesses is going just to service debt.